It is therefore ironic that Conservapedia calls itself "the trustworthy encyclopedia."

Deceit helps promote various [[belief system]]s with the public, as illustrated by the examples below. Nearly all of these examples consist of [[deceit]] that was [[embraced deceit|embraced]] by many people in order to advance an [[ideological]] goal. Most prominent modern examples are of [[liberal]]s hoping to mislead the public through [[propaganda]].

Deceit helps promote various [[belief system]]s with the public, as illustrated by the examples below. Nearly all of these examples consist of [[deceit]] that was [[embraced deceit|embraced]] by many people in order to advance an [[ideological]] goal. Most prominent modern examples are of [[liberal]]s hoping to mislead the public through [[propaganda]].

Revision as of 14:32, 12 July 2013

Deceit is the deliberate distortion or denial of the truth with an intent to trick or fool another.[1] See also Self-deception.

It is therefore ironic that Conservapedia calls itself "the trustworthy encyclopedia."

Deceit helps promote various belief systems with the public, as illustrated by the examples below. Nearly all of these examples consist of deceit that was embraced by many people in order to advance an ideological goal. Most prominent modern examples are of liberals hoping to mislead the public through propaganda.

Embraced deceit is deceit that is knowingly allowed, defended or even promoted for ideological purposes. Not only did the perpetrators of the deceit promote it, but their allies were complicit also.
Embraced deceit is common.

In 1997 the National Coalition of Abortion Providers' executive director Ron Fitzsimmons admitted, "I lied through my teeth" about the facts in order to defeat a ban on partial birth abortion.[4]

Gun control advocate Michael Bellesiles wrote a book entitled Arming America, The Origins of a National Gun Culture (2000). Gary Wills gave it a glowing review in The New York Times, but admitted later that "I was took. The book is a fraud."[5] Bellesiles resigned from his position as Professor of History at Emory University in Atlanta when an independent committee of scholars examined his work and concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."[6]

The Piltdown Man was a fraudulent missing link taught to an entire generation of students worldwide from 1912 to 1953 as "proof" that man had evolved from an ape-like species. Evolutionists declared the Piltdown Man to be authentic and gave it a formal name, Eoanthropus dawsoni, in honor of the person who claimed to have found it, Charles Dawson. The British scientific establishment largely supported the validity of Piltdown Man.[7] But the Piltdown Man was actually a medieval skull combined with a lower jaw from an orangutan and teeth from a chimpanzee, which were then placed in a gravel pit in the village of Piltdown, England. There are reports that as early as 1914 someone at the British Museum privately admitted that "a negro skull and a broken ape jaw" had been "artificially fossilized."[8] Yet promoters of evolution perpetrated this fraud for decades, in textbooks (e.g., the text at issue in the Scopes trial in 1925) as well as in popular books and magazines (e.g., a 1922 book for the general market illustrated the daily life of the Piltdown Man). [9]

Alger Hiss was a communist spy who worked at high levels in the U.S. government. He was convicted of two counts of perjury relating to his denials of his treason. His verdict was upheld at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Hiss was sentenced to five years on Jan. 25 and served 44 months in Lewisburg Federal Prison before being released in November 1954. Yet he continued to claim he was innocent afterwards. Documents released from Soviet files after the communist Soviet Union collapsed proved that Hiss had been a spy, and the 1997 Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy concluded that he was a spy in its report. [10]

American Vice President Joe Biden is listed on famousplagiarists.com for his widely publicized copying from British liberal Neil Kinnock and then pawning it off as his own, and then initially denying he had done anything wrong. The resultant exposure of his unacknowledged appropriation of Kinnock's work forced Biden out of the 1988 presidential race,[11] but liberals have continued to support him as a U.S. Senator and do not seem to mind his prior deceit one bit.

Liberals popularized the Scopes trial with the 1955 play Inherit the Wind, which is often taught in schools, and the 1960 Hollywood motion picture by the same name. Both completely lied about the facts in order to harm Christianity, misleading students who read or enact the play and everyone who saw the movie. As recently as April 17, 2007, the Village Voice described the play as though it were factually true,[12] thereby misleading all of its readers.

Doe v. Bolton[13] was the decision in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court which created abortion on demand based on the theory that Ms. "Doe" wanted an abortion for her health. Sandra Cano was the "Doe" of Doe v. Bolton, and she later proved in sworn testimony that at "NO TIME did I ever have an abortion. I did not seek an abortion nor do I believe in abortion."[14] She filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 asserting that "fraud was perpetrated on the Court" in the original Doe v. Bolton case brought in her name. In April 2007, the Supreme Court cited approvingly her brief for the general principle that abortion might harm the women who have them.[15]

Democrat Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong admitted that there was "no credible evidence" that three Duke lacrosse players committed any of the crimes he charged them with in 2006.[16] A three-member panel of a state commission "ruled that Nifong willfully lied during his prosecution of the three lacrosse players."[17] "The committee ruled in June [2007] that Nifong knowingly withheld DNA evidence that was beneficial to the three charged in the case. ... The state attorney general later exonerated the players and declared the three men innocent of all charges."[18] But 88 Duke professors -- more than 10 percent of the liberal Duke professorial faculty - endorsed and published an ad hurtful to the innocent students, which "helped create the lynch-mob atmosphere."[19] Ultimately "Nifong was sentenced ... to a single day in jail, having been held in criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge during his pursuit of rape charges against the three falsely accused lacrosse players."[20]

In relation to the theory of evolution evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in May of 2000 the following: "Haeckel's forceful, eminently comprehensible, if not always accurate, books appeared in all major languages and surely exerted more influence than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin ... in convincing people throughout the world about the validity of evolution .... Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities [between embryos of different species] by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases — in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent — simply copied the same figure over and over again."[21] The New York Times reported that "drawings were reproduced in textbook after textbook for more than a century" which "biologists discovered ... were fraudulent" but "some textbooks still contain them."[22] Known as the Haeckel drawings, these fake drawings remained in textbooks for more than 100 years until exposed as fake by the New York Times in 2001. As of Aug. 12, 2007, Wikipedia continued to present these drawings as generally true while omitting any reference to the New York Times exposing of the fraud.[23]

Several Climatic Research Unit scientists at the University of East Anglia have been scrutinized for deceitful behavior revealed from Climategate. If it is true that the CRU scientists deliberately falsified climate science data, and then then used the results of the falsification to obtain additional research funding, then it is deceit.

Adolf Hitler described the "Big Lie" technique in Mein Kampf and used it many times to justify invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries. He blamed Jews for the big lie, and for starting World War II, but was unconvincing.

Jayson Blair, disgraced former New York Times reporter, was forced to resign after it was discovered he had plagiarized and fabricated large amounts of material for several stories

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama repeatedly pledged to close the Guantanamo Detention facility housing terrorists in order to "regain America's moral stature in the world." [24] As president, the Washington Post reported in June 2009 Obama was considering an Executive Order to hold Guantanamo detainees indefinitely. [25]

In July 2009, Al Gore was interviewed by a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. During the interview, he was asked about a 2007 British court ruling regarding his "An Inconvenient Truth" film being shown in public schools. The question was specifically about nine significant scientific errors in the film that were noted by the judge. Gore did not address the issue of the errors, simply stating, "[T]he ruling was in my favour."[26] However, the judge had unequivocally stated in 2007 after the ruling, "I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act."[27]

In the earliest example of deceit, the serpent in the Garden of Eden persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, claiming it would make her like God. In truth, it caused the fall of man, exiling Adam and Eve from Eden. See John 8:44.

Quotes

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.[28]

"Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore." [2]

References

↑In law, deceit is the fraudulent representation of a material fact, made intentionally or recklessly or without reasonable basis and with the intent to induce reliance on the falsehood. In tort law, if someone does justifiably rely on the deceit to his detriment, then he has a cause of action for recovery of his injury.